Faculty

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Hailed by The Guardian as “a cellist of power and grace” who possesses “mature artistry and willingness to go to the brink,” two-time Grammy-nominated cellist Seth Parker Woods has established his reputation as a versatile artist and innovator across multiple genres. Woods’ projects delve deep into our cultural fabric, reimagining traditional works and commissioning new ones to propel classical music into the future. As The New York Times wrote, “Woods is an artist rooted in classical music, but whose cello is a vehicle that takes him, and his concertgoers, on wide-ranging journeys.” Also at the forefront of fashion, Woods has topped the “Best Dressed” lists in Variety, Texas Monthly and OC Register, among others. He is an honoree of the 2023 Seattle Symphony’s 25th Anniversary Silver Gala and recipient of the 2022 Chamber Music America Michael Jaffee Visionary Award. Woods has served on the faculty of the USC Thornton School of Music since 2022, and he was appointed to the Robert Mann Chair in Strings and Chamber Music in 2024.

Among the highlights of his 2024-2025 season, Woods performs in the world premiere of Nathalie Joachim’s new cello concerto, Had to Be, at Spoleto Festival USA. He later performs the same piece in its New York premiere as he makes his debut with the New York Philharmonic. Among his other upcoming engagements, Woods performs the East Coast premiere of Rebecca Saunders’ cello concerto Ire as 2024 guest artist with The Next Festival of Emerging Artists. He later makes his Los Angeles Philharmonic debut in the world premiere of a new cello concerto by Julia Adolphe. A core member of the music collective Wild Up, Woods is also a featured soloist in the fourth release of Wild Up’s Grammy-nominated Eastman Project: Eastman Vol. 4: The Holy Presence, an exploration of composer Julius Eastman’s works on religious themes released June 21, 2024 on New Amsterdam Records. In a second new release out this season on New Focus Recordings, Woods is featured alongside flutist Claire Chase on a recording of music by Anna Thorvaldsdottir.

During the 2023-2024 season, Woods brought his Grammy-nominated, autobiographical tour-de-force Difficult Grace—described as “dazzlingly inventive” (Gramophone Magazine) and “a feast for the ears, eyes and mind” (The New York Times)—to San Diego and Philadelphia. Difficult Grace premiered at 92NY in the 2022-2023 season with choreographer Roderick George, followed by performances at UCLA and Chicago’s Harris Theater. It was released as an album on Cedille Records in 2023 and nominated for the 2024 Grammy Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo. Woods performed the Boston premiere of Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s “UBIQUE” at Harvard University and featured in a pair of performances with Grammy Award-winning violinist Hilary Hahn at Konzerthaus Dortmund in Germany. With American Modern Opera Company (AMOC), Woods toured a new version of John Adams’ El Niño: Nativity Reconsidered with libretto by Peter Sellars, concept by AMOC member Julia Bullock. He appeared in two performances of Fallen Petals, a program commissioned by Chamber Music Detroit that was inspired by stories of juvenile offenders serving life in prison.

In the 2022-2023 season, Woods curated and performed a program honoring the centennial of composer George Walker at The Phillips Collection in Washington D.C.; premiered Freida Abtan’s “My Heart is a River” commissioned by the Seattle Symphony; and performed in a world premiere by Anna Thorvaldsdottir at Carnegie Hall as part of Claire Chase’s Density Series. The Great Northern Festival in Minneapolis presented Woods in his critically acclaimed performance installation, Iced Bodies, in which Woods, in a wetsuit, plays an obsidian ice cello. He also performed on the soundtrack of the PBS documentary The U.S. and the Holocaust—a film by Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein. Woods also became a member of the celebrated new music ensemble Wild Up, with whom he was nominated for a 2023 Grammy Award.

In addition to solo performances, Woods has appeared with the ICTUS Ensemble (Brussels, BE), Ensemble L’Arsenale (IT), zone Experimental (CH), Basel Sinfonietta (CH), Ensemble LPR, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the Atlanta and Seattle Symphonies, and in chamber music with Hilary Hahn and pianist Andreas Haefliger. A fierce advocate for contemporary arts, Woods has collaborated and worked with a wide range of artists ranging from the classical world, such as Louis Andriessen, Elliott Carter, Heinz Holliger, G. F. Haas, Helmut Lachenmann, Klaus Lang and Peter Eötvos; popular musicians such as Peter Gabriel, Sting, Lou Reed, Dame Shirley Bassey and Rachael Yamagata; and visual artists such as Ron Athey, Vanessa Beecroft, Jack Early, Adam Pendleton and Aldo Tambellini. In the 2021-2022 season, he also premiered concertos by Rebecca Saunders and Tyshawn Sorey. 

In recent years, Woods has appeared in concert at the Royal Albert Hall – BBC Proms, Aspen Music Festival, Ojai Festival, Snape Maltings Festival, the Ghent Festival, Washington Performing Arts, Strathmore, Dumbarton Oaks (Washington D.C.), The Isabella Gardner Museum (Boston), The Wallis Annenberg Center (Beverly Hills), Das Haus (Brussels), Musée d’art Moderne et Contemporain, Le Poisson Rouge, Cafe OTO, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Klang Festival-Durham, INTER/ actions Symposium, ICMC-SMS Conference (Athens, GR), NIME-London, Sound and Body Festival, Instalakcje Festival, Virginia Tech, La Salle College (Singapore), and FINDARS (Malaysia), amongst others. Recent awards include a DCASE artist grant, Earle Brown/ Morton Feldman Foundation Grant, McGill University-CIRMMT/IDMIL Visiting Researcher Residency, Centre Intermondes Artist Residency, Francis Chagrin Award, Concours Re]connaissance-Premiere Prix and the Paul Sacher Stiftung Research Scholarship.

Woods’ debut solo album, asinglewordisnotenough (Confront Recordings-London), has garnered great acclaim since its release in November 2016 and has been profiled in The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, The Guardian, 5against4, I Care If You Listen, Musical America, Seattle Times and Strings Magazine, among others.

In addition to his post at the University of Southern California, Woods serves on the artist faculty of the Music Academy of the West each summer and has previously served on the faculties of the University at Buffalo, University of Chicago, Dartmouth College and Chicago Academy of the Arts, and as Artist-in-Residence at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music and Northwestern University – Center for New Music. He holds degrees from Brooklyn College, Musik Akademie der Stadt Basel and a PhD from the University of Huddersfield. In the 2020-21 season, he was an Artist-in-Residence with the Kaufman Music Center, and from 2018-2020 he served as Artist-in-Residence with Seattle Symphony and Creative Consultant for the interactive concert hall, Octave 9: Raisbeck Music Center.

Seth Parker Woods is a Pirastro Artist and endorses Pirastro Perpetual Strings worldwide.